Can OTs and PTs Collaborate in Pelvic Health?

Get my 9 page OTs Map to the World of Pelvic Health.Meet me on the OTs for Pelvic Health Facebook Group!Check Out More OT Pelvic Health Content here.Find me on IG! @functionalpelvis-- Transcript -- No matter if you're in OT or PT, so it doesn't matter whether there's an O or a P in your credentials - what's most important is if there's a T. We are all therapists at the end of the day.   All of us have received emails and phone calls for people’s lives that we have transformed. That's what's most important and that's what brings us to something like continuing education. We are so hungry to learn more, to develop new skills, to expand our knowledge. By nature, therapists are intellectually curious and compassionate people. There is just so much that OT's and PT's have to learn from one another. I personally have trained with some amazing PTs such as Diane Lee-  her ISM series has been tremendous for my clients and at the same time PTs have taken my online pelvic health course and felt that it brought such a value to their practice. There's a definite need to cross collaborate and interest in serving our clients while expanding our knowledge base. While I know things are changing- there is a huge gap of knowledge around OT's role within the pelvic health field. Most people associate pelvic health with PTs-  so many are surprised to see us – to see ots in this specialty. Although it is within our scope of practice, it is up to each one of us to create our own path to competency to be able to work with our pelvic health clients. I think most of us can agree that with the majority of therapists specialized learning comes post graduation.  Both PT's and OT's come to pelvic health from such varied backgrounds that this is what creates a rich individualized experience for our clients. This however also adds to the confusion around what a pelvic health session is like. It's hard to place an experience in a box when we each have our own way of getting there.  like OTs take their own paths, pts take their own when to comes to specializing in pelvic health. the APTA even has their own women’s health section which is incredible and while there are certifications available out there, such as PRPC through Herrmann and Wallace to streamline the path professionals can take, in most areas of the world these certifications are not required for practicing within pelvic health, again adding to the confusion around who's doing what. however there are more clients in need of this very special area of rehab and there's room for us all. Just as OT's and PT's work side-by-side in other fields of rehab, there's a huge need for us to work collaborating in ph, especially when you consider the sensitive taboo nature of this area of practice. It's been my experience that the general population has such poor understanding of pelvic floor function and particularly how it impacts us from a whole body, whole person perspective that I think the more of us -OT and PT- working together in this field to spread the message, the better.  pelvic floor function is a crucial part of a much broader functional tasks of toileting and intimacy, Both of which have broader connections within a person’s emotional cognitive and social abilities. It's also important to consider the social implications for people with pelvic floor issues -withdrawal from social and recreational activities, social isolation, disempowerment, lack of self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and the impact on close relationships such as with our spouse, our friends and our children. It's so delightful to have a multidisciplinary approach. It serve____________________________________________________________________________________________Pelvic OTPs United - Lindsey's off-line interactive community for $39 a month! Inside Pelvic OTPs United you'll find:​Weekly group mentoring calls with Lindsey. She's doing this exclusively inside this community. These aren't your boring old Zoom calls where she is a talking head. We interact, we coach, we learn from each other.​Highly curated forums. The worst is when you post a question on FB just to have it drowned out with 10 other questions that follow it. So, she's got dedicated forums on different populations, different diagnosis, different topics (including business). Hop it, post your specific question, and get the expert advice you need.More info here. Lindsey would love support you in this quiet corner off social media!